Moving out to get a divorce. The stress and the arguments had been building for a long time, and her violence and emotional abuse were escalating. I had even gotten back into therapy to discern what part I had in it and what was abusive. I rented a place to have in reserve. Then one Saturday she woke me at 6 in the morning to tell me to leave so she could get my daughter ready for an event undisturbed. That’s when I moved out.

This is actually a hard question for me to answer. Nearly everything I do is on a whim. I’m super impulsive, but someone upstairs must be smiling down on me, because everything has always managed to fall into place for me.

Great answers so far, all of you. Some of them really are tough decisions, while others are just big decisions. Regardless, though, good on you all for doing what you believed to be right.

Mine is more a big decision than a tough one, really. I had been accepted into a grad program at Middlebury which would have sent me to study at the University of Florence for a year. It would have been amazing, but the funding I had been counting on fell through. My parents told me that they’d either pay for that one year, or help me financially throughout my PhD. I figured that I can take some time to really immerse myself in Italy once I’m through with my PhD, so here I am in the T-dot rather than in Firenze.

@Seelix my biggest decision was along the same lines. I was provisionally accepted into four graduate programs (which I never expected would happen) and found myself struggling to make a decision about where to study in fall. One of them was easy to nix since it was a summer only program and it would take me longer to acquire my masters. The next eliminated school was due to distance because I decided that I don’t want to study on the east coast (a huge leap considering I was contemplating studying all the way in Australia not too long ago.) The two schools that were at a stalemate for months were the school that offered the emphasis I wanted (children’s literature) and the one that would cost less (my alma mater.) I went with finances. I’d rather wait until I am gunning for my Phd to take out loans / run myself into debt.

Cutting off contact with my aunt (who was my legal guardian from ages 4–18) and her son, my cousin, who were abusive to me throughout my childhood and were angry and more abusive once I called them on their stuff as an adult. They made it clear that I was to play the role I’d always played if I wanted to be a part of their lives.

What’s funny is if you told them that they were abusive, they’d swear up and down that they weren’t that sort of people at all. It’s hard to cut your immediate family off, even if they are abusers. I feel like I’m getting over Stockholm Syndrome.

It’s been quite a journey. Perhaps one day, I’ll feel safe enough to get in touch with my extended bio family, none of whom I really know, save for one married-in aunt who divorced my uncle after enduring similar abuse from him.

Whether I was going to keep fighting or just give up. I was in business with another person, they bailed out and left me in a mess. I had a very tough uphill climb facing me. So I wondered if it would be better to throw in the towel, and how far I was going to throw the towel. Yeah, I considered it. But I have some good things to live for. After a pretty tough period, I decided the good things in live outway the alternative and plus, I have too many people relying on me. I’m still fighting.

This is impossible to answer. Lots of decisions seem huge at the time, but yield small results. The opposite is also true. Because of that I tend to make decisions on a whim. The only value in a choice is that it was chosen.

Finally calling CPS on my sister. Strangely this decision was harder than the one I had just made to take my mom off of life support. My mom was dying period and I made the decision to make sure that all of her kids could be around her when she passed. If she had been left on life support she could have died at any time with no one around her.

My sister was a hard one. Any which way I thought about it the right thing to do was call CPS and squelch the feelings of betrayal that doing so brought on.

I don’t think I’ve ever really made any big decisions much, because I sort of live by the day, and whether it’s good or bad, don’t think of the future much. Whatever happens happens, and when I do make decisions, they never really seem to be much of a big deal, since I always only vaguely think of the outcomes, and basically convince myself that whatever I predict will more or less come to be.
I know that’s bullshit because life has shown me otherwise, but somehow I can’t get rid of the mindset. I guess maybe this means I really haven’t been faced with any real big decision.
The closest thing I can think of is making big steps forward, whether good or bad. Like going back to school, which I’ve done and am still attending, or currently, trying to deal with this booze problem here. So I denno. Nothing ever seems like, this, or that?

Getting the Esper Ragnarok turned into a sword, or keeping it as is? Hmmm…

Whether or not to give my sister, who was in the last stages of cancer, a dose of morphine that would put her out of any misery she might be experiencing. Why didn’t I do it? I just didn’t know if she was in pain. While she had lost the ability to talk and use facial expressions, I witnessed her reach up and brush the cheek of our other sister. I decided it was best to tend to her needs as well as I, and her friends and family, could.